Wonderland

“If I had two tickets to paradise, I'd probably get back to Levittown,” says rocker Eddie Money—one of the more illustrious sons of the prototypical suburb built in 1947 for veterans facing a housing shortage—who happens to be sitting between his parents when he makes this dubious statement. Another Levittown boy, an unnamed aspiring singer, tells his therapist that he blames the bedroom community for his inertia and dissatisfaction; later, footage of him practicing at an empty karaoke bar is intercut with clips of Money performing for a wildly enthusiastic crowd. The crude contrast is typical of this documentary—produced, directed, shot, and edited (with painful literalness) by John O'Hagan, whose fascination with the notion that Levittown's architectural homogeneity has dictated the lives of its residents must have distracted him from examining the drives and backgrounds of the original home owners.
ByLisa Alspector